Goal: To get from Tokyo Inter (in Yoga) to Kyoto city by evening, hitchhiking.
6:30 am, Tuesday morning, after a previously gruelling day of school, papers, and preperation, we are ready to set off on our big adventure, armed with musical instruments, Baileys, and bananas.
Looking like relatively clean hobos with out winter clothes and giant backpacks and various other bags, we took the train to Yoga station, where we planned to walk to the main intersection in Tokyo, Tokyo Inter, to pick up a ride. We were first slightly set back by the fact that upon reaching the expressway, it was way above us, and there were no entrance ramps in sight. So after walking about 20 minutes in the wrong direction and realising that the road was never going to come down to meet us, we got directions from a convenient store and righted ourselves. We positioned ourselves at the corner of the intersection with our 京都方面 "Direction of Kyoto" sign and thumbs at the ready, giggling like little kids and trying not to be mortally embarrassed. After a while of this not working, we decided to change the sign to "Direction of a Service Area" just to get us the hell out of Tokyo. 40 minutes from our start, a white van containing a family of three pulled over for us! We were totally floored, we couldn't believe we had gotten our first ride, and so quickly, and at Tokyo INTER none the less! The family was heading to Izu, and after buying us Taiyaki, dropped us off at a service area before the turnoff for Izu. They were lovely people, and actually tried to find us our next ride for us, despite our protests.
They eventually commandeered the poor guys whom we asked to take our photo together to take us to another service area. These guys, whom call Baba and Numa, were on their way to a karate tournament down the road- Numa turned out to be the champion boxer of Japan! They gave us macadamia chocolates and christened us よ・コリン and determined that this should also be the name of our band (but we decided to stick with our original name).
After they dropped us off, we found a ride with a lady on her way to work in Shizuoka city- this whole drive we had the sea on our left and Mt. Fuji on our right, it was downright magical.
The next ride was with a wonderful woman who was driving to a place a bit before Hamamatsu, with her husband, who seemed to have some kind of mental disorder or disease and kept asking the same questions over and over, bless him. She was wonderful, and actually took us to the Hamamatsu service area, which was about 20 minutes after she actually needed to get off the expressway.
At the service area in Hamamatsu, first we had a break for refreshments (a weird cross between our delusion that we were in Lord of the Rings, and being semi-alchoholics)
And then we decided to try a new tactic; safety pinning the Kyoto sign onto my backpack and walking around the parking lot looking for Kyoto license plates (this last bit on the advice of Baba and Numa). 
Here we had our first adventure with trucks. As we wandered around the parking lot, we heard someone honking at us, and turned to see a man in a truck motioning us over. Fearing he was going to tell us off for hitchhiking, we approached him cautiously; but it turns out he was on his way to Wakayama and was happy to give us a ride for the last 3 whole hours to Kyoto!
He didn't talk much, but he told us about his daughters, who used to go on rides with him in the truck but were now too old, and then he bought us takoyaki and coffees 
and actually let us choose which route we wanted to take to Kyoto; sea or mountains. We chose sea and were rewarded by this view!
He didn't talk much, but he told us about his daughters, who used to go on rides with him in the truck but were now too old, and then he bought us takoyaki and coffees and actually let us choose which route we wanted to take to Kyoto; sea or mountains. We chose sea and were rewarded by this view!
Upon arrival in Kusatsu, near Kyoto, we walked into the city of Kusatsu (guided by a kind jogger with a distinct Kansai accent, upon hearing which it dawned on Yuriko that we had actually left Kanto) and met our Couchsurfing host for the evening, a lovely Colombian guy named Andres, for Indian food. 
There were so many Christmas lights! Yuriko was like a moth to them. But this flamingo was especially tacky, as Andres affirmed.
Andres was a wonderful host; he made us mate in the traditional manner, metal straw and all, and we sang our songs for him with the ukulele and watched a super cute movie. 
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